Review: 'Louie' - 'Ikea/Piano Lesson': WTF?

A review of tonight's "Louie" coming up just as soon as I think it's laundry detergent...

There are times when we get a two-story "Louie" episode — though tonight's came close to being a three-story outing — where Louis C.K. has clearly just put these parts together because they combined to fit the timeslot. "Ikea/Piano Lesson" was one of those outings, though, where I have to wonder if he either always intended for the pieces to go together, or if he at least recognized once they were done how well they fit thematically as well as time-wise.

"Ikea" brought back Maria Dizzia as Delores, the mom who was Louie's horrible sex buddy in last season's "Bummer/Blueberries" (which we glimpsed in some expertly-timed flashbacks, which felt used more for the joke than to remind us of this crazy lady). Delores, with all her neuroses and rules and ethical standards, is just a funny character, but the story of their uncomfortable trip to Ikea — where they inevitably would up acting like an old married couple(*) — wound up pairing nicely with the vignettes about Louie getting crabs and then seeking closure with Marc Maron.(**)

(*) As I say often, "Louie" often features stories that you've seen done on other sitcoms — "30 Rock" recently did an episode about how Ikea is the worst possible place any couple can go — but the "how" of the show is always more important than the "what."

(**) This is the point where I confess that I have never listened to the famous "WTF" episode where C.K. and Maron hashed out a lot of their old issues, though I do like the podcast in general. (I just came to it later.) Without having heard that, I'll say (perhaps wrongly) that this episode didn't so much feel like a rehash of last year's "Tickets" with Dane Cook — where fictional Louie and fictional Dane discussed the specific details of a very public beef — than using their relationship to illustrate a more general point about friendship, regret, etc.

"Ikea" starts off with Delores asking Louie to go to therapy with her so she can get closure on their bad date, and Louie understandably wants no part of coming into the safe space of this very erratic person to suffer God knows what. But given how things go on their Ikea trip, as Delores keeps pushing him to play the role of her husband (which Louie only seems to accept on the drive home when she asks about the chairs), he might have been better off just seeing the therapist and talking this ridiculousness out, no?

"Piano Lesson," meanwhile, opens with the return of Maria Bamford, who either got crabs from Louie a few episodes ago or gave them to him, and therefore isn't sure whether she should be mad at him or feel guilty. This leads to a funny, uncomfortable vignette at the pharmacy, where Louie waits for the appropriate shampoo while an older woman insists on getting an unnecessary consultation with the pharmacist, only to be humiliated when the man loudly begins asking her about all her bodily functions that day. In that case, talking it out was a bad idea.

And Bamford's confusion about the crabs nicely leads us into Louie beginning to realize, 5 to 10 years too late, that the ancient beef he's had with Maron was his fault, not Marc's, and they should have discussed it long before now. The bittersweet coda to the story is that Louie had this exact realization — and this exact conversation — with Maron, 5 years ago, before forgetting about that too and going back to shunning him. Their conversation is even framed like Louie is the patient and Marc is the therapist — albeit a therapist who practices in boxers and dress socks — and you get the impression that Louie is just going to keep repeating this stupid pattern forever.

Sometimes, talking about things is the best thing you can possibly do. Other times, best to just shut up and take your medicine home with you quietly.

Some other thoughts:

* Louis C.K., advertising copywriter: "It's flat, it's blue, it goes on the floor, it's not coated with AIDS, and it's not a portal to a netherplace. It doesn't make me cum, but it's fine." Don Draper couldn't have said it any better.

* I began to wonder if anyone too young to have grown up with the "Laverne & Shirley" theme song would call his wife "Hasenfeffer," but then my friend Google told me it's also the name for a German stew. So okay.

* Did anyone recognize when those archival clips of C.K., Maron and Sarah Silverman were actually from? The special was presented as clips from the '80s, but Silverman was only finishing up her teens when the '80s ended, and I'm guessing even in that period she wasn't getting on TV yet. Maron (born in '63) is old enough, and C.K. (born in '67) just barely. I liked that Louie felt the need to watch himself on the webcam at the same time he was seeing his younger, skinnier, less bald incarnation.

Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com

Hahah Don well, my mom is a sex psychologist researcher (see: Masters and Johnson...or maybe not the show is probably nothing like real life) so let's just say we can have some frank conversations...though we both do not discuss our own lives on that level (THANK GOD)

Jarring continuity aside, this might have been my favorite episode of the season. I loved all three parts, and the woman at the pharmacist was one of the more laugh-out-loud funny moments you'll get on this show.

They play those old standups on the HBO Comedy channel a lot. Rodney Dangerfield's Young Comic Showcase is one. I saw one recently with Jon Stewert, Jerry Seinfeld and Drew Carey.

I loved how the pharmacy took an old joke concept and flipped it. When the older lady walked up to the counter I thought for sure the joke would be that the pharmacist would embarrass Louie by openly discussing his crab problem in front of her. Thats a common comedy set up. I think CK knew what the audience's expectation of that scene would be so he reversed it on us.

Yes. Back then looked a bit like Matthew Perry and Jason Dohring's ginger lovechild. He was very cute. I'll admit it - seeing what he looked like back then was sort of a shock, which made his onscreen reaction to his younger self (and his deflated look at his current internet image) all the more poignant.

I would say this is an above-average episode for the season, but below average for the series. When "Louie" is good, it's either clever and grinworthy or laugh-out-loud funny; when it's great, it's both. For the most part, this episode felt like neither.

"Ikea," for me, was just lousy. The old married couple gag didn't make me laugh, and didn't seem to be the point of the sketch. Instead, it was just seven minutes of Delores being just completely ridiculous and making Louie as uncomfortable as humanly possible, and just too far-fetched, even by Louie standards. This would have been alright if this was a set-up to some later payoff, and because it stands so poorly on it's own that's what I was expecting. I truly thought we'd come back from the commercial break to Louie and Delores at her therapist's (Louie having reconsidered after seeing how incredibly damaged she was), and then there'd be some funny revelation, or more realistic, severely awkward interplay to crack us up, or it'd flip expectations and turn out to actually be Louie's fault, or - perhaps most likely - we'd just see Louie react as Dolores recounted the unimaginable horror of her life, and follow him as he walks home and takes a shower. Any of these endings would fit the Louie formula to a tee. Instead, we come back to a separate vignette, leaving a heavy handed set-up with no point and one laugh (as Alan said, Louis CK, copy writer...)

"Piano Lesson" suffers a similar fate. The first half combines a few different very funny, but essentially unrelated events. While it is leading to a resolution, the resolution was just an odd conversation that didn't move me in any direction. Instead of an even bigger payoff to the events leading up to it, it really just pulled and fizzled away from them. Alan credits CK with echoing Maria Bamford's uncertainty to his own realization, but that's not how it played to me, and given the structure of the vignette and lack of more precise congruity, I don't think it was the intention.

To both parts, a few very funny moments in isolation, but these were diluted rather than enhanced by the broader plot lines.

Are we supposed to know what this thing from 10 years ago between Louie and this other comic is? Is it something to do with crabs or did the crabs thing prompt him to remember the situation? What am i missing there?

Addendum to warning: it's $2 for a 30-day subscription, during which you can stream any other episode in the archives (the last 50 are free and downloadable). Given how highly these episodes have been praised here and elsewhere, I suspect it might be worth it, and will subscribe when I have time to listen.

I liked it, like most Louie episodes, because it was particularly peculiar in its own way. I liked that Louie initially accepted Delores' offer to go with her to IKEA in return for a blowjob when he refused to go to therapy with her when their last sex-related encounter resulted in her HAVING to go to therapy (or at least taking up a lot of time at therapy). The character of Louie so far hasn't necessarily been a model citizen, but he's been generally "good", or at least tried to be. If he'd accepted that BJ, I dunno, something seemed very wrong about it to me so for some reason, I'm glad he didn't go through with that.

About the crabs incident: Unless my memory is failing me, didn't he say at some point that he had it when he was younger? Which would believe me to think he accidentally (as far as we know) passed it on to Maria Bamford and then just never told her he'd had it, which is a pretty shitty thing to do. I liked the juxtaposition of him stopping his first piano lesson (only because he had a piano his kids refused to take lessons for) because he needed to deal with crabs. Also, small detail, but I liked how he changed his name on the old TV stand-up to "Louie C.K." from "Louis C.K." to match the character, as opposed to the person. Nice detail.

For a little bit more detail on the Marc Maron-Louis C.K. real fight, this is a good place to start out:http://www.laughspin.com/2012/05/18/marc-maron-shooting-scenes-for-louie/

Sounds like I should listen to the real podcast, though, to get the full story.

I watched Doug Stanhope's special right before this episode (friend of Louie, former guest star) and he had a joke about looking in the mirror some mornings saying that cant be right it's a least a few years and several pounds off. It immediately came too mind with Louie and Sarah watching their old performances, especially Louie doing to Webcam thing Alan mentioned.

Does FX have any new dramas cued up for the fall? All im seeing are ads for obnoxious looking comedy shows. Did the whole Terriers (amazing show)/Lights Out thing scare them off? Is American Horror Story all they have planned or are they breaking about any new dramas for the fall? Because for the most part i've loved almost every show theyve put out

There was more than a thematic link, seeing how last time Louis met Delores he ended up in a pharmacy looking for sex-related products.

Were the opening credits shortened? Looks like Louis has started suffering from running time irritability, or Susan Morse is very persuasive - not happened before this season, except maybe for the Afghan trip?

I've watched Louie from the beginning and have mostly enjoyed it I'm losing interest in the vignette format of half-formed ideas with no continuity. After a while it just seems lazy. Anyone else feel this way? I know that you artistic types will shame me and suggest that I stick to network sitcoms, etc., so flame on :>).

I like that he can have both. It lets him have the bigger stories, while also playing with smaller ideas that (to me) work well as shorts where they might not work so well as a half-hour episode. Kind of like a Far Side comic; it makes a great one-shot, probably not a great premise for a movie or 30-minute program. That said, I can see your point. No flames, I just respectfully disagree.

Great episode, although the one that has stuck with me was the one with Parker Posey. I hope they revisit that relationship/aftermath. That said, Delores was such an awkward and tragic character it was nice (and uncomfortable) to see her again and watch how Louie would react during another encounter with her. Ironic since he thought he was getting off easy by avoiding the shrink.

As an aside, no more Wilfred reviews? Thursday had very strong episodes of Wilfred AND Louie.

I agree. I loved the episode with Parker Posey. Also Melissa Leo was awesome. I like the interactions that he has with women, except for Sara Silverman. I guess she's an ok comedian. I've just never been a big fan.I have high hopes for this show, and hope that she's not going to be a regular. Maria Bamford's line about the crabs was awesome.

Love Louie trying to read Delores and trying to adjust his demeanor accordingly - but coming up with nothing different to say -just the same greeting with varying degrees of gravitas - and instantly regretting the opportunity he'd just given Delores to unload more crazy on him. Then, moments later, greeting another neighbour with "Hi, Meredith, how are - nice to see you". As tho' changing his tactic with greetings - has quickly learned not to greet with a question he has no interest in knowing the answer to. Nice nuance in the writing and delivery.